Vulnerability
by orangeyhairedimmortal
Summary: The only thing that mattered to him had been taken away in a flurry of gunshots and smoke. Roy was severely wounded in the process but all he can think about is the unknown. Unable to help, Roy entrusts Havoc to lead his team to find what was lost before it's too late. But the road is long and unpleasant, every step leading deeper into pain and vulnerability. -not a lot of Ed/Al
1. Chapter 1

**so just to be clear, the symbols are alchemical symbols but i couldn't find any to put here and i don't think takes third party fonts so we have to go with this.**

 **ps: sorry to post a new story when i have others i really need to finish/work on. i promise i am doing so and will eventually get them posted as well. this one i just started writing it at work so enjoy**

* * *

There was a knock on the door but there was no answer. He knew it would take him a moment to get to the door so Jean waited patiently. After a few moments of nothing happening with the door, Jean rang the bell instead. A couple seconds later, the locks to the door clicked and the door was opened a crack big enough for an eye to be seen.

"Password?"

"Uh..." Jean dug in his pocket for a second and pulled out a piece of paper with some symbols on it and held it up to him.

"Read them out to me."

"Aw, come on, man, I don't know this stuff."

"Then trace them in my palm." He said, holding his hand out the door.

Jean growled and took the piece of paper back to get a closer look at them. He traced the symbols into his hand and the person nodded, the door closing momentarily. The door opened back up and Jean was ushered inside.

"Did anyone see you?"

"Colonel, no one cares... How's your side?"

"It's fine." He snapped.

Jean looked at his superior's side and noticed the pink seeping through Roy's white tee. Roy put his hand over the spot and glared at his subordinate.

"Can you focus?" He growled.

"I am... What's with all the secrecy and smoke and mirrors? It's not like the military doesn't know about this."

"Yeah but they don't know I'm trying to work on it from the outside. They have me on leave for a reason."

"Yeah, because you almost died."

"Exactly. So me working on the case is a violation of my leave and they also don't want me on it for the closeness of the issue."

Jean lifted an eyebrow. "That's not going to stop you at all... um... You've gone pale, Colonel."

Roy backed up to the couch and reached back to find the arm of his sofa.

"Yeah... it happens." He grunted, slowly sitting down.

Jean went to help him but Roy waved him off as he sat down finally. He breathed shallowly, trying to keep from causing himself more pain and Jean watched helplessly. Finally, after getting his bearings back, he looked at Jean and gave a rueful laugh.

"I must look so pathetic."

"Not at all, Colonel. You just look like you're in a lot of pain. Have you been taking your pills?" He looked away. "As I thought. The doctors let you come home because you were terrorizing the nurses and threatening the hospital. If you can't do things right, you'll end up back at the hospital."

"I can't just-"

Roys face drained of color and Jean ran to him as Roy began to gag. He put his hands on his chest and back as Roy held his side as hard as he could and barely rang the trashcan in front of him. Jean held fast as his superior emptied his stomach, blood marbled in the bile and Jean frowned.

"You haven't eaten."

"I can't..." Roy heaved.

"You have to have something in your stomach or this will keep happening..."

"I'm at an impasse, Havoc. If I eat, I vomit but I need food to take my pills for pain, but the pain makes me sick and if take them without food, I still get sick. No matter what I do, I stay in pain and get sick."

Jean moved to look at the wound, pulling his shirt up. He moved the bandages to take a look and made a face.

"You need to get checked. Maybe we can get a salve that has a numbing agent in it..."

Roy was shaking and leaned his forehead on Jean's shoulder.

"Tell... tell me you... you..."

Jean put his hand on his superior's back as he tried not to sob.

"You don't have to force yourself, Colonel. We're doing all we can when we can. We have Fuery eavesdropping on lines in his spare time and anyone near that place that's on mission is looking as well. You taught us well, Colonel, and we're using our skills to the full."

He nodded and Jean sighed, rubbing Roy's back.

"Get some sleep, Roy. You're only causing yourself problems by denying yourself."

"I can't... I can't knowing she's out there and she probably thinks I'm dead and-"

He went into a coughing fit and Jean felt blood on his shoulder as Roy held his other shoulder to brace himself. When he was done he squeezed Jean's shoulder hard to keep the pain at bay. Jean helped him lay down on the couch and he shivered.

"I'll call the doctor."

Roy nodded and Jean went over to the phone to call the doctor to come and check on his superior while he went back to work. He had driven over on his lunch break and he was pretty sure he was over the time limit, but if he didn't come over then Roy would get himself into trouble. With an affirmation from the doctor, Jean covered Roy up on the couch.

"Stay put and don't do anything to make things worse. I'm going back to work. If I find out anything, I'll let you know immediately. You need to get your strength back so you can come back to work and help us, okay?"

"Okay…"

"We're rooting for you, Colonel. Try and get some rest…"

He nodded and Jean left to head back to Central.

* * *

 **sorry for the shortness but they first couple of chapters will be short due to me not being able to judge word count on my phone...**


	2. Chapter 2

Jean walked into headquarters and everyone looked up.

"How was he?" Breda asked.

"Paranoid and over exerting, but okay I guess."

"You've got some um... blood on your shoulder."

Jean looked at his shoulder and sighed.

Fuery adjusted his glasses. "I picked up something on an incoming call."

"You did? What did it say?" He asked, lighting a cigarette.

Fuery looked at Breda and he made a face at him.

"Nothing good... I think it was a ransom/threat."

"What'd it say?"

"'Snipers can't snipe if they can't see anymore'."

Jean groaned. "Shit... I hope that doesn't mean what I think it does."

"There wasn't any other message after that. It was just that threat and nothing else."

"It's not like we can ask the Fuhrer about it." Falman said. "We were told specifically not to get involved with this case. Especially the Colonel, but we all know that would never happen."

"Well he's not going to like this one bit."

"Who said were gonna tell him?"

Everyone looked at Jean as he took a drag of his cigarette.

"You guys didn't see him when he was in the hospital and you haven't seen him now. I know everyone _wants_ to see him but it takes all I can do to keep him calm. I mean she's his closest companion and he watched her get captured and almost died himself trying to go after her. These people aren't playing around and the higher ups are taking their attack _very_ seriously. These people targeted them specifically. Roy said he was 100% sure that they wanted to capture them both and most likely torture them, but the person sent got a bit trigger happy. They probably think he's dead or at least at death's door. Telling him that message will only confirm his wild thoughts and then he really _will_ be at death's door.

"We will do this ourselves. We've been with the Colonel for too long not to be able to do things on our own. The best thing to do is keep him out of the search for Hawkeye."

Everyone nodded in agreement, although they were all nervous about leaving their superior out of a very sensitive mission that involved Roy's closest companion.

* * *

Later when Jean got off, he knocked on the door and it opened quickly. The doctor gave a nod and let him come in.

"How is he?"

"Rambunctious to a fault, of course. Keeps ripping his stitches open. If he keeps doing it, I will give him a sedative that knocks him out for a month."

Jean laughed. "Yeah sometimes he's pretty rowdy. Despite the stitch ripping, how is he?"

"Definitely has paranoia and anxiety. Has lots of nightmares about what could be happening to her. Were they married?"

"Him and Hawkeye? No." He said with a laugh. "It was a pretty heated chemistry between the two but it never went past professionalism. They were both really good at keeping it platonic, even though it was obvious they had feelings for each other."

"I hope he learns a lesson from this." The doctor said, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. He bummed a light from Havoc and took a long draw. "If you get her back, that man better either marry her or tell her how he feels and make sure she understands it completely. Nothing worse than not telling the one you love that you do and you lose the opportunity. In this particular instance, it will be especially devastating if something happens to her. He will be completely ridden with guilt and who knows where that will lead?"

"Yeah..."

"I'll be giving him a prescription for sleeping and I noticed he hasn't taken his pain pills. Is he trying to be a hard-ass?"

"He can't eat and he can't take the pills without food, but the pain makes him sick and yaddy ya. It's a cycle. I was going to ask if you could prescribe a salve that had a numbing agent in it so that the pain would subside enough for him to eat and take a real pain pill."

"I'll see what I can do."

"Doesn't need to be a lot, just enough so that he can eat and get the pills in his system."

"I got ya. I'll see what I can come up with. I did give him a mild sedative to calm him down for now, so he'll be asleep for a good bit. Make sure when he wakes up that he stays put. Have him read a book or something."

"Sure." He said with a roll of his eyes.

The doctor left and Havoc went in more to check on his superior. Roy was asleep on the couch, looking almost like he did when they brought him into the hospital. _He must have gotten worse when I left._ Havoc went to the kitchen and looked in the icebox to see if Roy had anything he could make in there. Of course, he had a block of cheese and some milk but nothing else. He sighed and went to the phone on the wall.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Gracia, its Havoc. How are you? How's Elysia?"

"I'm doing fine and Elysia is at her friend's house for the night. What do I owe the pleasure of your call?"

"As you are a wonderful woman full of household charms, I'm here at the Colonel's and of course, he has nothing here. If he had, I would have made something."

Gracia laughed. "Would you like for me to come make something for him?"

"I would be much obliged, madam."

Gracia laughed again but then got serious.

"How is he?"

"Not good. He can't take his pills, he can't eat, he's in horrible pain, and he's kind of in a bit of hysterics."

"This has to be taking at very hard toll on him. First Maes and now the lieutenant?"

"I think Hawkeye is a little harder just because he saw her get taken and no one knows her status. At least with Hughes it was pretty blatant and to the point."

"True... I'll bring something over. Soup, I assume?"

"That would be the best course of action. At least something light to get him to maybe get something in his stomach."

"Should I get something else to put in it?"

"Nothing much, maybe something soft that he can chew a little bit on."

"Alright then. I'll be there shortly."

He hung up and waited for Gracia to come as he found something to do in the time being.

* * *

 **ah roy, we know you want to help but if you keep hurting yourself you'll never get things accomplished and your subordinate needs you! more to come!**


	3. Chapter 3

**i apologize if it seems a bit rusty. haven't written in a while. trying to get back in the groove. sorry!**

* * *

 _The shooting came out of nowhere as Roy and Hawkeye ducked the attacks, trying to find out where they were coming from. The darkness didn't help along with the fact that they were in an alley as well. They had gotten a call about people causing a problem in the area but they never thought that they would be caught up in it._

 _"Can't you send a stream down the alley to give us a bit of a reference point?" Hawkeye grumbled to her superior._

 _"I can't tell if there is anyone down there. I won't be responsible for someone burning to death."_

 _"Well, we can't tell where these bullets are coming from and wasting our own."_

 _Roy was about to say something when he felt something in his side. He looked over at his torso and found blood starting to stain his uniform. He was bleeding quickly, losing strength._

 _"I'm hit!" he yelled to his subordinate._

 _"Shit, Colonel!" she yelled, shooting blindly. "Hold on for me alright?!"_

 _"Got ya!" someone yelled._

 _Roy heard her yelling and looked over, finding an Ishvalan man looking at him intently as he held Hawkeye in a strong grip. He had a cloth over his mouth but he pulled it down and gave a wicked grin to him. He then proceeded to lick Hawkeye's cheek slowly from her chin up to her cheekbone and cackled._

 _"She'll be something worth the treasure. What I'm going to do to her… oh, Colonel… when I'm done with her…"_

 _"Don't you touch her!"_

 _Another man came behind him and hit him over the head with something hard, making him fall to the ground. Stars danced in his vision as he also felt something enter into the same wound he had received from the shot earlier. A iron rod lodged into the ground. Roy spit blood, the rest of it trickling as he reached out towards his subordinate. The last thing he saw was the head Ishvalan punching Riza in the stomach and then giving her a good uppercut to the chin. Then he heard screaming and he didn't know what was going on. He couldn't move… His eyes were losing focus… **No… NO! Hawkeye…**_

* * *

"Hawkeye… Hawkeye, fight them… No!"

Jean moved his bowl before the Colonel could throw it out of his hands. He tsked and put the bowl back on the coffee table, grabbing at Roy's arms as he flailed about. He finally grabbed a hold of them, causing Roy to wake up, lunging at Jean's face.

"Whoa! Slow down… Hey… It's me…"

Roy's eyes rolled, trying to focus and wake up at the same time. Jean just held on his arms to keep them from making contact with his face as Roy hyperventilated awake. Roy's pupils seemed to quiver, trying to gather everything at once but he started recognizing Jean's face and his breathing slowed.

"There we go… just breathe…"

"Wh- where am I?"

"Home. I asked Gracia to make some soup since you don't have anything in the house to eat. It's a light soup; you think you might try to keep some down?"

"I'm not hungry. I have to find Hawkeye-" he said, trying to get up.

The pain in his side caught and he howled in agony, falling back to the couch. Jean just sighed as Roy's body tensed and shivered, trying to keep the pain at bay but failing.

"Colonel, you need to take some pain meds. You can't take them if you don't have something in your stomach. _Please_ just calm down for a moment…"

"I… I can't… I…"

"You can barely talk because you're in so much pain. Eat something to calm your stomach so that we can get you better, sir. All this moving around and bad dreams and pain does nothing for you."

"I can't leave her out there… I just can't… I know she's strong but she's a woman… I… Havoc, I don't know what they may have _done_ to her." He said, his eyes pleading.

Jean smiled sadly. "Let's hope nothing at all…"

"She was screaming… Jean… she was screaming…"

"Stop…" Jean said firmly, looking at his superior with as firm of a face as he could. "You were practically attached to the floor with that iron rod, how the hell were you supposed to get to her? Rip your stomach in half? I promise we are doing everything we can to find her and bring her home. Right now, we have to get this wound to close or you won't be around much longer."

Roy didn't say anything else, just shivered on the couch as Jean watched him, debating on what to do. Finally he stood up and headed to the phone.

"I'm calling an ambulance."

"Wh-why?"

"Because you can't take care of yourself. You need to be in the hospital where you should have been all this time. They only let you out because you threatened to burn the place down with everyone in it."

"The threat still stands." Roy growled, trying to look menacing.

Jean made a face at him. "Yeah, that pale face of yours really had me going there."

Roy frowned. "Stop mocking me, dammit. I'm still your superior."

"You're going to be _nothing_ if you don't calm down, eat, get some pain meds, and proper sleep. Seriously, Colonel. This isn't a good thing. You just keep reopening your wound and making things worse. At least when you made the threat last time you looked like you could do it. You were pulling at doctors left and right with a strength only from within. Now… now you look like you could go at any minute. What help will you be if you aren't alive?"

"Hawkeye doesn't know I'm alive… She… She probably thinks I'm dead."

"I don't know what to say about that. I wish I could say something comforting but the fact of the matter is that we don't know about her either. Right now, we just need to get you to the hospital."

Roy didn't want to go but conceded to anyway since he had no strength to deny his subordinate, physically or mentally.

* * *

"Sometimes it's a good thing that we live away from Central, ya know?"

"Right? We were able to get info without alerting anyone. Although I'm still a little confused as to what we saw back there."

"That's what these new spiffy cameras are for. Glad we decided to take one."

"Do you want to go to the film developer first or should we run things by the Colonel?"

"I haven't heard anything from anyone so I think we should check in first. Besides, they may have someone doing stuff for them."

"Mmm." Alphonse answered as they walked out of Central Station and into the heart of the city.

Edward stretched again and leaned backward, cracking his back.

"Man that train ride is brutal on the back. You'd think they'd have better seating…"

They walked to Central Command and went up to Mustang's office where Breda and Fuery were working on paperwork. Hearing the door open, they looked up and Fuery smiled as he adjusted his glasses.

"Major Elric, Alphonse, welcome back! How was your trip?"

"Informative. We took lots of pictures." Edward said with a wink.

"You were able to get a better look at what happened?" Breda asked quietly.

"For once it seems that it's a good thing Resembool is near Ishval. It only took us about a day by car to get to the border and we could slip in easily."

"And what did you find?"

"Lots of stuff and we took pictures." Edward said, motioning for Al to open up his suit so that he could take out the box camera.

Alphonse did so and opened up the brown box, pulling out the film.

"Do you know where we can get this developed and not raise suspicion?"

"I can go to investigations and see if they have something." Fuery said, holding out his hand.

"Where're Havoc and the Colonel?" Al asked as he handed the film over.

Fuery and Breda looked at each other.

"The Colonel never got better. He's gotten worse and worse since he was discharged. Havoc had to put him back in the hospital because he was in too much pain to do anything. Everything was a catch 22 with him…"

"He couldn't eat so he couldn't take pills but that meant that he was in pain constantly. Havoc finally had enough of it and sent the Colonel back to the hospital."

"That stubborn bastard…" Edward growled. "Do you know what room he's in?"

"Yeah, I can give you his information."

They wrote down Roy's information and the brothers went to see their superior.

* * *

Roy's eyes fluttered open and he looked around in confusion. This wasn't his house… He tried to move but decided he liked the bed better. He tried to get his eyes to focus when Havoc came into view.

"You awake?" he asked.

"I am now…" Roy mumbled under his breath. Jean just smiled. "Where am I?"

"The hospital. I had to bring you back because you needed better care. They've got you hooked up to IVs and you look a lot better."

"Was I asleep?"

"Yeah for about five or six hours. You really needed it considering everything…"

Roy sighed, hating to be back in the hospital. He didn't have time for this convalescent mess; he had a subordinate to get back. He tried to sit up and Havoc moved to help him, plumping up a pillow behind him so that he had better support. His stomach suddenly rumbled and he put his hand over his stomach is surprise.

"Was that you?" Havoc asked in the same surprise.

"Yeah… I guess I have my appetite back…"

"That's great! You're looking pretty skinny anyway and you need something to give you some strength. I'll go tell the nurse that you'll be able to have a little something today. I'll make sure it's light so that you don't overwhelm yourself and start vomiting again."

"Right…"

Havoc left the room and Roy just sat there, staring at his hands as they lay on his legs. He hated those hands; the hands that were useless during the attack, the hands that let his precious subordinate slip through his fingers, the hands that froze when they could have sent fire to rain down on the men who dared touch her… He _hated_ those hands… The door opened again and Havoc came back in with someone in tow.

"Hey, look who I met up with in the hallway."

Roy looked up and smiled slightly at Edward and Alphonse as they walked in. Edward made a face at his superior.

"When they said that you had gotten worse, I thought they were just exaggerating but they weren't kidding. Damn, Colonel…"

"Good to see you too…" he grumbled. "Did you find anything?"

"Yeah, plenty. We took pictures of them too." He said with a grin. "We gave it to Fuery to get them developed. I'd tell you about them but there are a couple that I think you need to see for yourself."

"Just the fact that you have anything at the moment is helpful enough and makes me feel a little better. Did you… did you see any sign of her?"

"Except for what we have in the pictures, we found nothing else to indicate that she was there recently." Edward said with a sad sigh. "But, I have a feeling she's alive. I don't know why, but I know she is."

"As much as I wish your feelings were enough, I can't say the same."

"No offense, Colonel, but usually you're not that hung up about the lieutenant and even if this happened and you were alright, you wouldn't be so high strung that you couldn't even let your body rest. What's the difference this time?"

"Brother!" Alphonse growled, elbowing him in his automail arm. "You're so insensitive!"

"I'm not being insensitive! I'm asking a legitimate question. We've seen Lieutenant Hawkeye take out tons of people all on her own and she's handled worse by herself. What makes this particular issue tense?"

"I think maybe you guys should go-" Jean started.

"No… He's right… By all logic and past events, Edward is right about the way I've been acting. He's also right about Hawkeye and that in normal circumstances, she could handle herself. This wasn't a normal thing…" Roy looked up at his subordinates. "We were lured into that alley for a reason and I believe it was so that they could take me out. I think these people knew who I was and trapped us in a methodical way to make it impossible to escape unharmed in some sort of way. They attacked at sundown, when the shadows of the night covered that alley and they seemed to know me well enough to know that I wouldn't send out a stream of fire in case I hit someone. I'm not like I was during the war… They shot me in a place that could go either way in fatality to take Hawkeye's attention off the others. Then they came and grabbed her. She could do nothing because I was dying and I could do nothing because she was in their grasp. Then they left me to die there while I watched them take Hawkeye away as he left me with a cryptic message of what he may or may not do to her and they made it so that Hawkeye would never know if I survived or not, the last thing she seeing was me pinned to the ground.

"These people… they knew my methods and they knew my close relationship with Hawkeye. They knew the best way to take us off guard and make us helpless to fight against them. Usually, I wouldn't have a doubt in my mind that Hawkeye could take them out in a moment's notice and be back here soon but… you didn't see the look in that Ishvalan's face. He wasn't just threatening me… he was _warning_ me." He looked at Edward. "I'm tearing my wound open and willing to suffer every pain this wound has given me a thousand times over because I'm afraid that if I don't get to her soon, I won't have anything left of her. He was going to break her and if it's the way I think he was telling me, I don't know how I will ever be able to get her back from that dark and deep well once she's fallen down into it."

Edward breathed in a little and crossed his arms.

"So you think they will do something to her to break her."

"If they haven't already… She doesn't know if I'm alive or not."

"She'd fight them to try and find out."

"They'd make it where she couldn't fight back anymore. They'd do something to teach her a 'lesson'. Those types… that man who looked at me with eyes like a demon, they aren't there for fun and games. They are there to enact revenge and fuck with your mind in any way they can. When they find vulnerability, your weak spot, they use it to every advantage. Doing something to her…"

Havoc squeezed his shoulder in a comforting manner.

"We're going to do everything possible to keep something like that from happening. And even… even if it did… we'd find those men and bring them to justice. Either way, they won't get away with it."

The door opened and the nurse brought in some food, prompting the Elrics to leave. With his worst fears preying on his mind, Roy wasn't very hungry anymore as he prayed that he was wrong about everything he was thinking.

* * *

 **1) film was available back in this era. i looked it up. they had a box camera with a little roll of film in there for pictures.**

 **2) riza is a strong woman by design (literally) so this wouldn't have normally been anything to set her back. but there were a lot of variables in this.**

 **3) i'm trying to be as tasteful as i can in what i'm hinting at.**


End file.
